F 



THE 



FIFTH HALF CPJNTUKY 



AiiRiTAL OF John Wintiirop 



SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS. 



COMMEMORATIVK EXKRCISKS 

iiv niK 

'ESSEX INSTITUTE. 
irNK 22. 1880. 



[From the HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTEJ 



S.VLEM : 

PUI.NTKD von IHK KSSKX INSTITUTK. 

1880. 




Glass _- 
Book_- 






THE 

FIFTH HALF CENTUKY 

^ OF THE 

ARRIVAL OF John Winthrop 



SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS. 



COMMEMORATIVE EXERCISES 

. UY THE 

ESSEX INSTITUTE. 

n 

JUNE 2 2, 1880. 












[From the HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTE. J 



V SALEjM : 

PRINTED von THK ESSEX INSTITUTE. 
1880. 



A 



INTRODUCTION. 



The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the amval 
of Jolni AVinthrop, at Salem, with the charter and records 
of the Massachusetts Bay Company, occurring on June 22, 
1880, it was deemed meet and appropriate that the first 
field meeting of the season should be held on that day, 
at the Pavilion on Salem Neck, fi'om which is obtained 
an extensive view of the bay, and of the shore along 
which the fleet sailed ere the anchors were dropped in 
the waters of New England ; and that the exercises 
of the occasion, instead of a discussion on subjects of 
general scientific and historical interest, should be devoted 
to a recital of incidents connected with this important 
event, or such other topics as the time and place might 



suggest. 



(1) 



A description of the appearance of Salem harbor, at 
this early period in our history, may be gleaned from the 
following extracts from the diary of Rev. Francis Higgin- 
son, who, under date of "Frj'day, June 26, 1629," writes : 
" The sea was al)undantly stored with rockweed and yel- 
low flowers like gillj^flowers. By noon we were within 
3 leagues of Capan, and as we sayled along the coast 
W'e saw every hill and dale, and every island full of gay 
woods and high trees. The nearer we came to the slioare 
the more flowers in abundance, sometymes scattered 
abroad, sometymes joyned in sheets 9 or 10 yards long, 
w hich ^ye supposed to be brought from the low meadows 
by the tyde. Now what with fine woods and greene 
trees by land, and their yellow flowers paynting the sea, 
made us all desirous to see our new paradise of New 
England, whence w^e saw such forerunning signals of fer- 
tilitie afarre oft'." On Monda}^ June 29, 1629, he writes : 
"we passed the curious and difficult entrance into the 
large and spacious harbour of Naimkecke, and as we 
passed along it was wonderful to behould so many islands 
replenished with thicke w^ood and higli trees and many 
fa^'re green pastures."^ 

Much valuable information on this subject may be ob- 
tained from Rev. Joseph B. Felt's Historical Sketch of 
the Forts on Salem Neck, read at a field meeting on 
Salem Neck, Thursday, Aug. 20, 1863, and printed in 
the fifth volume of the Historical Collections of the Insti- 
tute. 

The Pavilion is located at or near the land granted by 
the town of Salem, of six acres, to Rev. John Higginson 
in 1661. This land was conveyed by deed (Reg. Deeds, 

1 See Ilutcliiuson's Collection of Papers, pages 41 aud U. 



3 

Essex, vol. iii, fol. 39G), 25, 9, 1G70, to Thomas vSavage, 
who on August 6, 1G75, transferred the same by deed of 
gift to his daughter Sarah and her husband, iTohn Higgin- 
son, jr., with lands adjoining which he had purchased of 
other parties, in all about twenty-eight acres (Reg. 
Deeds, Essex, vol. iv, fol. 383). 

A gTandson of John Higginson, jr., the foirrth John 
Higginson^ in succession (and the four were living at the 
period from the birth of the youngest Jan. 10, 1697-8, 
to the death of the eldest in Dec. 9, 1708) conveyed, 
April 8, 1730, to Benj. Ives (see Reg. Deeds, Essex, 
vol. Iv, fol. 92). 

After the death of Benjamin Ives in 1752, the estate 
with additional purchases, including land obtained from 
the town by vote of the citizens, in exchan2:e for Piijnars^ 
or Roadie's Point, on which is located the present alms- 
house, amounting to forty acres, etc., passed into the 
possession of his son John Ives, who conveyed the same 
to Richard Derby* May 16, 1758 (see Reg. Deeds, Essex, 
vol. cxliv, fol. 40). 

After the death of Richard Derby this property was 



2 Rev. John Higginson, born at Claj'brook, Aug. R, IGlfi, c"ame ^Tith his fatlier to 
Salem in l(j'29, and in 1C41 assisted Rev. Henry WhitQeld (wliose daughter Sarah 
he married) in the ministry at Guiiri)rd, Conn. He returned to Salem in 16,59 and 
was ordained as pastor of the church, which his fatlier had founded some thirty 
years before, and continued the resiiected minister until his death IJec. 9, 170S. 

II John born at Guilford, 1140, a merchant, settled in Salem; IJeut. Col. of the 
regiment, a member of the Governor's council, etc., died March 23, 1719. 

HI John born Aug. 20, 167.'), educated a merchant, lived in Salem, died April 20, 
1718. 

ly John born Jan. 10,1097-8, graduated at Harvard College, 1717; sustained chief 
offices of the town. County Register, etc.; died July 1,5, 1744. 

For a sketch of this family see Hist. Coll. Essex Inst., vol, V, p, 33. 

3 This name ajipears in deeds, but it should be '• Pic^n " named for Thomas 
Picton to whom tlie land was originally granted. Sometimes spelled Pigdeu. 

•* For a sketch of the Derby Family, see Hist. Coll., Essex Inst., vol. Ill, pp. 
154, 201, 283. 



assigned to John Derby towards his portion of hi,'^ father's 
estate, who conveyed the same by deed to Edward Allen, 
Dec. 13, 1793 (see Reg. Deeds, Essex, vol. clvii, fol. 73). 
After the death of Edward Allen, July 27, 1803, and of 
his wife Margaret, Aug. 13, 1808, this estate passed into 
the possession of his son Edward Allen, who sold the 
same to Josiah Orne Feb. 26, 1810 (see Reg. Deeds, 
Essex, vol., clxxxviii, fol. 177). Josiah Orne, April 6, 
1816, conveyed the same to Jonathan Dustin of Danvers 
(see Reg. Deeds, Essex, ccx, fol. 86). Eliza Sutton, 
Hazen Ayer and Serena his wife, in her own right, all 
of Peabody, being heirs of the late Jonathan Dustin, 
conveyed the same to Daniel B. Gardner, jr., of Salem, 
Sept. 24, 1875 (Reg. Deeds, Essex, vol. dccccxli, fol. 
233), who has since had the land surveyed, constructed 
streets and avenues, and sold many lots upon which have 
been built a large number of seaside residences. 

The forenoon of the day Avas devoted to visiting the 
various places of interest in the neighborhood. The in- 
spiration of the occasion was not wholly in the memories 
of the past, but bright sunlight, refreshing breezes, the 
lovely green of the shore and the deep blue of the bay, 
dotted with the white sails of many yachts, engaged in 
their annual resratta that mornins;, added much to the 
enjoyment of the large number who participated in the 
celebration. At 1 p. m. lunch was served in the spacious 
and handsome dining hall upon the second floor of the 
Pavilion ; at 2.30 o'clock the formal exercises Avere held 
iii the hall below in the folloAvinsr order : 



ADDRESS 



By Robert S. Rantoul. 



The Present and the Future are measurably of our own 
making. No act of ours, be it ever so trivial, but has 
its ever-Avidening circle of remote results. Not so the 
Past. We find that ready to our hands. It spreads be- 
fore us like the canvas of the limner, inviting stud}', 
stimulating aspiration, inspiring thought ; but, like the 
canvas of the limner, it makes no answer to our fascinated 
gaze. It lies revealed, like some crystal rescued from 
the caverns of the earth, immutable and perfect, and we 
contemplate it as something wholly outside of and beyond 
ourselves, — as something of which we had no hand in the 
making, and for which we are in no way to l)e called on 
to account. Nothing that we may do can make it other 
than it is. Nothing which we have done, — nothing 
which w^e have omitted to do, has helped one jot to make 
or mar its everlasting mould. It looms up before us, 
forever fixed, like some awful form unfolded in a vision, 
remote, inexorable, silent, and at rest forever. 

Yet there is a sense in which all this is otherwise. If 
our children ally us with the future, so do our ancestors 
ally us with the past. The ancient precept, "Honor thy 
father and thy mother," is still in force. We are what 
"we are, in great measure, because of "vvhat they were. 
And we may not study their acts as the acts of beings 
without personality, — as occurrences which entrance the 

(5) 



mind but cannot move the heart. On closer knoAvledire, 
the soul warms towards the actors of the past. As we 
walk among them familiarly, they seem to return our 
ardor. They reward our devotion. They reflect our 
feeling. And at last dry fact becomes living reality, — 
naked bones put on a fleshly garment, and the scenes 
that have been of old seem to breathe and jrlow ao-ain 
with quickened and responsive life. 

It has been thought fit to commemorate to-day, by ])e- 
coming obseiwances at this spot, the advent of John 
Winthrop upon the shores of Massachusetts Bay. It is 
good to pause, on a day so marked, so fateful, in our 
colonial annals, and give ourselves up for an hour to the 
reflections which crowd upon the mind. It is wise to 
call up to the fancy the picture of that auspicious scene, 
— to recite the perils of the voyage, — the hopes, the 
fears, the aspirations of those engaged in it, — the as- 
pect of the country they approached, and the condition 
of the settlements which were to be their future home. 
Especially has it been thought becoming, in the descend- 
ants of these actors in the past, to devote a portion of 
the day, consecrated as it is to heroic memories, to an 
effort to disclose and emphasize, if we may, the true 
significance of the occurrence we recall, — to an endeavor 
to compute the value of the contribution made to the great 
sum-total of American nationality by the little band who 
touched our shores two centuries and a half ago. 

On Saturday, June 12, 1630, a date corresponding 
with the close of the third week of the fairest month of 
our New England summer, the hamlet which stood where 
we now live was roused at early dawn by the unwonted 
sound of cannon in the offing. Early risers paused in 
their homely avocations, and stood listening at their 
cabin thresholds ; and the startled red-man, crouching for 



wild-fowl behind these very ledges, forgot his aim and 
strained his unassisted vision seaward. Amons: the 
wooded islands of the outer harbor was descried, sharply 
defined ajjainst the backijround of the s^lowins; East, a 
single craft of no mean tonnage, flaunting at peak the 
red cross of England, standing in by the North Chan- 
nel between Baker's Island and the lesser Misery, and 
dropping anchor as the sun reddens the horizon. The 
Lyon, Capt. Pierce, is lying within the islands, and that 
"Palinurus of the Bay" is not slow to hail the new arri- 
val, a skiff" from whose side had boarded him at early 
dawn. There is hasty interchange of salutations. Mas- 
ter Allerton, he who gave his name to the outer headland 
of Nantasket in Boston Harbor, is on his way in a shallop 
from Pl}^nouth to Pemaquid, now Bristol, near Casco 
Bay, and as he sails by, having taken the wings of the 
morning, he boards the new-comer, within an hour of 
sunrise. Another shallop bears down the harbor from 
Salem, — there were early risers in those days, in 
Salem, — and at last the welcome story reaches the 
little hamlet of the presence of the "Arbella," flag- 
ship and pioneer of the expected fleet, of three hundred 
and fifty tons burthen, manned by fifty-two seamen and 
mounting twenty-eight guns, after. a tempestuous, seventy- 
six days' passage from the Isle of Wight, bearing John 
Winthrop and the Charter of the '' Governour and Com- 
pany of London's plantacion in the Massachusetts Bay 
in New England." Local self-government had struck its 
roots in Massachusetts soil. Those morning gims, still 
echoing along our breezy headlands, had announced the 
possi])ility, now assured by five half centuries of suc- 
cessful trial, of tranquillity with freedom; of a demo- 
cratic commonwealth without class privilege ; of an 
equitable land tenure without primogeniture ; of the 



8 

independence of church and state and of political staliility 
without hereditary office. The purpose for ■which God 
had at last unveiled the western world was about to be 
achieved and the destiny of America was determined. 

It would be delightful, did the hour permit, to picture 
what Winthrop found here, with the fidelity of gi'aphic 
art. The material is at hand. We know who were here, 
for the settlers of Salem had only moved up from Stage 
Point, between what are now known as Norman's Woe and 
Gloucester Harbor, fours years before, when the fingers 
of the two hands were enough for numbering the heads 
of families among them, and, since then, they had been 
successively reinforced by Endicott and by Higginson, 
with only a chosen few of England's best. We know 
where these worthies lived, for the restless zeal of our 
antiquarian students has left no record unexplored, which 
could correct the outline map of the early town. We 
know what our fathers wore, what arms they carried, 
with what tools they wrought ; for all they had of tex- 
tile fabric or mechanical design came from old Enijland, 
and invoices and bills of lading, detailing fashion and 
make and quality and price, are extant j^et. Finally, we 
know well what manner of men they were, — what their 
purposes in life, — what their impressions of the new 
world, for they were neither idle triflers nor uncultured 
boors, but set themselves at once about recording obser- 
vations and transmitting intelligence to friends left behind. 
Nothing is more delightful than the perusal of these co- 
pious details. They unlock heart-secrets ; they repro- 
duce the age. And when, at "about two of the clock" 
on this anniversary day, so the narrative proceeds, "Mas- 
ter Endecott," whom Master Peirce had returned to Salem 
to fetch, boarded the Arbella, and with him his pastor 
Skelton and one Capt. Levett his adjutant, perhaps, it 



9 

is not difficult to picture the scene which followed. "We 
that were of the assistants," continues Winthrop in his 
journal, "and some other gentlemen, and some of the 
women, and our captain, returned with them to Nahum- 
keek." It is not recorded how they came up the har])or, 
but that they came in sloop-boats, then called shallops, 
and in common use, is a fair presumption. Nor are we 
told just where they stepped ashore, although tradition 
and conjecture point strongly to the curious metamorphic 
rock, near the old Bass River ferry and the present Bridge, 
as the probable landing. Somewhere along that gi-assy 
eight-foot lane which skirted the Planters' Marsh and 
hugged the margin of the stream, and which led on to 
the Governor's "fay re house" and the Arbor Lot Fort, 
that notable company must have disembarked and taken 
their stately way on foot, to enter upon the mission of 
their lives. They were men who had turned their backs 
upon much that was worth living for in England, — men 
whose eminent connections, whose intelligence, whose 
character and whose means, made possible the establish- 
ment of a state and the building of a capital town in 
this untrod waste, — men who were pioneering the largest 
and best appointed fleet ever yet put forth for a port in 
America, — men who meant, peaceably if they could but 
forcil)ly if they must, to make fast and strong the foot- 
hold of the Saxon race on this continent, and to make 
the discomfiture of Richelieu's ambition absolute and final. 
There is a native dignity in these men, arbiters of a con- 
tinent, as they walk in sober state along the sunny stream. 
No pomp attends their way. The hundred or more of the 
village, old and young, are at hand to greet them ; but 
with conflictino; feelinijs. The winter had been hard and 
the help of the new comers is welcome. But the powers 
wliich Conant and his men had, not without jealousies and 



10 

regrets, made over to Endicott, two summers before, 
Endicott must in turn surrender to another. Hardly 
corn enough remained for a fortnight's supply, and yet 
the Arbella brought no succor. No joy-bells pealed, for 
as yet no monitory church-spire cleft the clouds. The 
oaks, which were to frame the venerable church structure 
preserved to us through the beneficent liberality and zeal 
of a former President of the Institute, were tossing their 
branches in the vernal air. No cheerful salvos from 
Barbie's Fort or the Arbor Lot echoed the Arbella's sun- 
rise guns, for then powder was precious, like dust of 
gold, and gunners were "fishers and choppers and plow- 
men" also. 

Notaljle indeed was the seaw^orn company which sat at 
meat that day in the new-built Endicott cottage, and 
looked out from under its peaked gal)les and through its 
diamond-leaded windows upon the Indian village in North 
Fields and the grassy slopes of what we call Orne's Point, 
and supped there, as Winthrop does not fail to tell us, 
with a smack of the lips quite pardonable in one just 
•landed from seventy-six days on shipboard, "with a good 
venison pasty, and good beer." And thus the "fajTe 
house" which Higginson, in 1629 found newly-built for 
Governor Endicott was the first habitation in the colony 
to open its hospitable doors to his successor. 

Winthrop, the central figure of tliis gTOup, was in his 
early prime, at forty-three. A man of rare grace of per- 
son and liearing, he was not more marked by those traits 
Avhich make men engaging in their intercourse Avith others, 
than by those more robust attributes which fit us to de- 
termine, to withstand, and to prevail. The ladies, at 
least, will allow me that he was no ordinary person when 
they know that at the age of seventeen he was a husband, 
and had embarked upon his third matrimonial venture at 



11 

the age of thirty. At eighteen he was a justice of the 
peace, and at tw^entj-one, father of three sons, one of 
Avhom was afterwards Governor of Connecticut, and 
anotlier of whom was drowned, near the scene of Leslie's 
Retreat, on the day after his landing. He had been edu- 
cated at Cambridge, the liberal University of England ; 
had ceased, in June, 1629, to be an attorney of the Court 
of Wards, — indeed, he belonged to a family learned in 
the Liw from the time of the 8th Henry, as well as pillars 
of the reformed faith even in the bloody days of Mary ; 
he had joined Matthew Cradock's company of adventurers 
in September, 1629, on condition that its patent and en- 
tire concerns should be transferi'ed to America, and had 
been chosen Governor in October, with the greatest con- 
fidence and hope, as Cradock's successor. 

I dare not trespass on your time, to attempt a charac- 
terization of this distinguished personage. Such an at- 
tempt, limited by the narrow necessities to which I am 
bound, would do injustice to liis name. Nor is there need 
of tribute at my hands. A descendant of his, whom we 
hoped for the pleasure of seeing and hearing to-day, has 
dealt in his own graceful, delicate and exhaustive way, 
with this eminent magistrate and man ; and while no 
femily portrait could be more fit to inspire ancestral rev- 
erence and pride, nothing which my researches have 
brought to light would jDrompt me to modify, in a single 
line, the noble features thus delineated, nor to question 
the exalted estimate put upon the character of his ancestor 
by our esteemed contemporary, Mr. AYinthrop of Boston, 
in his Life and Letters of Gov. Winthrop. But the 
chronicles of the time display the true proportions of the 
man. The record of liis election to be the chief ofiicer 
of the enterprise does not omit to say what was thought 
and expected of liim by his associates. It reads as follows : 



12 

"And now the Court, proceeding to the election of a 
new Governor, Deputy and Assistants, * * and having 
received extraordinary great commendations of Mr. John 
Winthrop, both for his integrity and sufficiency, as heing 
one every way well fitted and accomplished for the place 
of Governor * * the said Mr. Winthrop was, with a 
general vote and full consent of this court, by erection 
of hands, chosen to be Governor for the ensuing jenr, to 
begin on this present day ; who was pleased to accept 
thereof and thereupon took the oath to that place apper- 
taining." 

The civil, political and military ftuictions, now attaching 
to the chief magistracy of Massachusetts, have come to 
overshadow all others and are the only ones now associ- 
ated, in the mind, with the title of Governor. The word 
"Court," too, as used by us has another sense than that 
attaching to it in these records. When Conant, Endicott, 
and after them Winthrop, were selected and qualified as 
"Governor," the choice Avas made by a small body of 
corporators, and the electors were discharging not more 
a political than a commercial function. Analogies are 
not wanting which throw light upon this point. The title 
of "President," we apply in common to our highest offi- 
cial dignitary and to the chief officers of banking, com- 
mercial and manufiicturing corporations. The word 
"Governor" was and is used, in England, as we use the 
word "President," and can'ies with it, of necessity, no 
political significance whatever. Thus the Bank of Eng- 
land to-day calls its executive board, as the Massachusetts 
adventurers did theirs, the " Governor, Deputy Governor 
and Companj^" and also holds its "Court of Directors." 

I return from this digTcssion, to quote from the files of 
her Majesty's Public Record Office in London, these 
words referring to the Winthrop emigi'ation : "This year 



13 

there went hence six ships with one thousand people in 
them, to the ^Massachusetts, having sent, two years before, 
between three and four hundred servants to provide houses 
and corn aorainst their coming. These seiTants, tlirough 
idleness and ill-goverament neglected both their building 
and planting of corn, so that if those six ships had not 
arrived, the plantation had been broke and dissolved. 
Now, so soon as Mr. Winthrop was landed, perceiving 
what misery was like to ensue through their idleness, he 
presently fell to work with his own hands, and thereby so 
encouraged the rest that there was not an idle person 
there to he found in the whole plantation, and whereas 
the Indians had said they would shortly return as fast as 
they came, now they admired to see in what short time 
they had all housed themselves, and planted corn suffi- 
cient for their subsistence." 

"It is ti-ue," wrote the famous Capt. John Smith, in 
1631, "that Master John Winthrop, their new Governor, 
a worthy gentleman both in estate and esteem, went so 
well provided (for six or seven hundred people went with 
him) as could be devised. But at sea, such an extraor- 
dinary storm encountered his fleet, continuing ten days, 
that of two hundred cattle which were so tossed and 
bruised threescore and ten died ; many of their people 
fell sick, and in tliis perplexed estate, after ten weeks 
they arrived in New England at several times, where they 
found threescore of their people dead, the rest sick, 
nothing done, l)ut all complaining, and all things so con- 
trary to their expectation, that now every monstrous 
humor beo^an to show itself. Notwithstanding all tliis, 
the noble governor was no way disanimated, neither re- 
pents him of his enterprise for all those mistakes, but did 
order all tilings with that temperance and discretion, and 
so relieved those that wanted with his own provision, that 



14 

there is six or seven hundred remained "svith him, and 
more than sixteen hundred Enghsh in all the country, 
with three or four hundred head of cattle." 

Still another contemporaneous account is found in a 
letter of Thomas Wiggin to Sir John Cooke, Knight, 
principal secretary to his Majesty, and member of the 
most honoral)le privy council, dated 1632, which also 
gives the impression of an eye-witness : "For the planta- 
tion in the Massachusetts, the English there being about 
two thousand people, young and old, are generally most 
industrious and fit for such a work, having in three years 
done more in building and planting than others have done 
in seven times that space, and with at least ten times less 
expense. Besides, I have observed the planters there, 
by their loving, just and kind dealing with the Indians, 
have gotten their love and respect, and drawn them to an 
outward conforming to the English, so that the Indians 
repair to the English Governor there, and his Deputies, 
for justice. And for the Governor himself, I have ob- 
served him to be a discreet and sober man, giving good 
example to all the planters, wearing plain apparel, such 
as may well beseem a mean man, drinking ordinarily 
water, and when he is not conversant about matters of 
justice, putting his hand to any ordinary labor with his 
servants, — ruling with much mildness to the jrreat con- 
tentment of those that are best affected, and to the terror 
of offenders." 

Dudley, himself thirteen times chosen Deputy Gov- 
ernor, and four times chosen Governor over Winthrop, 
wrote thus from Boston in 1630, to his patroness and 
friend the Countess of Lincoln : 

"We sent Mr. John Endicott, and some with him, to 
begin a plantation and to strenglhen such as he should 
find there, which we sent thither from Dorchester and 



15 

some places adjoining. From whom the same year, re- 
ceiving hopeful news, the next year, 1629, we sent clivers 
ships over, with about three hundred people, and some 
cows, goats and horses, man}' of which arrived safe. 
These, by their too large commendations of the country 
and the commodities thereof, invited us so strongly to go 
on, that Mr. Winthrop, of Suifolk, who was well known in 
his own country and well approved here for his piety, liber- 
ality, wisdom and gravity, coming in to us, we came to 
such resolution that in April, 1630, we set sail from old 
England with four good ships, and May following eight 
more followed, two having gone before in February and 
March, and two more following in June and August, be- 
sides another, set out l)y a private merchant. These 
seventeen ships arrived all safe in New England, for the 
increase of the plantation here this year 1630, but made 
a long, a troublesome and costly voyage. Our four ships, 
which set out in April, arrived here in June and July, 
where we found the colony in a sad and unexpected con- 
dition, above eighty of them being dead the winter before ; 
many of those alive weak and sick ; all the corn and 
bread amongst them all hardly suiBcient to feed them a 
fortnight, insomuch that the remainder of a hundred and 
eighty servants we had the two years before sent over, 
coming to us for victuals to sustain them, by reason that 
the provisions shipped for them were taken out of the 
ship they were put in, and they who were trusted to ship 
them in another failed us and left them behind. Where- 
upon necessity enforced us, to our extreme loss, to give 
them all liberty, who had cost us about £16 or £20 a 
person, furnishing and sending over." 

John AVinthrop, as his l)iographer Avell says, was fully 
justified l)y these varied testimonies in saying of himself, 
in a statement of his reasons for joining the New England 



16 

enterprise, "It is come to that issue as, in all probal)ilit3^, 
the welfare of the plantation depends upon my assistance. 
For the main pillars of it, being gentlemen of high qual- 
ity and eminent parts, both for wisdom and Godliness, 
are determined to sit still if I desert them." 

But Winthrop did not desert them and they did not sit 
still. Here too, on this June afternoon, was Dudley the 
Deputy, chosen on Ijoard the Arbella to the second place 
in the government, after it became certain that his prede- 
cessor, Humfrey, must take passage later. He had been 
associated, in a responsible charge, with the House of 
Clinton and Lincoln, now dukes of Newcastle, the best 
family of the time, Mather says, in the British Peerage : 
a family out of which such friends of America as Hum- 
frey, the ill-starred Johnson and the young heir of Sir 
Ferdinando Gorges had chosen consorts. Thomas Dudley 
was now fifty-three. He had read law ; fought as a captain, 
both for English Queen Bess and French King Harry of 
Navarre ; had extricated, by his prudent administration, 
the estates of the young Earl of Northampton from dis- 
astrous entanglements, and was now to Ijecome the founder 
of Cambridge, in New England, and the first Major Gen- 
eral of Massachusetts, and to be elected year after year, 
either Governor, Deputy Governor or Assistant of the 
Colony. 

Here, too, was Saltonstall, Winthrop's first assistant, 
"that excellent knight" as Mather calls him, a figure not 
less conspicuous, from his rank, resources and character, 
than any other after AVinthrop in the company. He was 
a person of sufficient consideration to have been the first- 
named associate of six original patentees of Massachusetts 
Bay. When Gov. Cradock's proposal for the transfer of 
the government of the colony to our soil was to he de- 
bated, pro et contra, before a general court, convened for 



17 

that end at Master Deputy GofFe's house in London, 
Aug. 29, 1629, at 7 o'clock in the morning. Sir Richard 
Saltonstall was the first-named of the committee selected 
to advocate the transfer ; and at a general court, held 
Oct. 15, 1629, he was chairman of a committee to arrange 
and draw up the terms of the transfer, to he executed 
"between the adventurers here at home and the planters 
that are to go over." Joining Cradock's enterprise a year 
before, and now 44 years of age, he took, at once, the 
leading place to which his rank, his gifts, his fortune and 
his legal training entitled him ; was the first signer and 
promoter, if not the writer, of liberal church covenants, 
and of letters of wise instruction to Governor Endicott 
and the Salem clergymen, and was destined on his return 
to England to sit in judgment at the trial for high treason 
of five peers, in the High Court of Justice. 

But Sir Richard had better claims than these to present 
remembrance. He took it upon himself to rebuke the 
prevailing intolerance of his time in language as courteous 
as it was bold, addressed to the Boston clergy. He 
writes to them as "Reverend and dear friends, whom I 
unfeignedl}^ love and respect." These are his timely 
words, written from London a few years later. Fortunate 
for New England had they been duly pondered ! 

"It doth not a little grieve my spirit, to hear what sad 
things are reported daily of your tyranny and persecutions 
in New England, as that you fine, whip, and imprison 
men for their consciences. Truly, friends, this your 
practice of compelling any in matters of worship to do 
that whereof they are not fully persuaded, is to make 
them sin, for so the apostle tells us, and many are made 
hypocrites thereby, conforming in their outward man, for 
fear of punishment. "VVe pray for you and wish you 
prosperity every way, and hoped the Lord would have 
2 



18 

given yon so much light and love there, as not to practise 
those courses in a wilderness which you went so far to 
prevent. These rigid ways have laid you very low in the 
hearts of the saints, I do assure you I have heard them 
pray in the public assemblies that the Lord would give 
you meek and humble spirits, not to strive so much for 
uniformity as to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond 
of peace. I hope you do not assume to yourselves 
infallibility of judgment, when the most learned of the 
Apostles confesseth he knew but in part and saw but 
darkly." 

Then there was the preacher Phillips, another Cambridge 
man, thirty-seven years of age, the first pronounced con- 
gregationalist in the Colony — an independent theologian, 
standing alone among the clergy but in full sympathy 
with the broader views of Saltonstall and Browne — 
whose resistance to a church tax in 1632 is thought to 
have resulted in the instituting of our legislative house of 
representatives. And there were the Johnsons, Isaac 
and his young bride, whose untimely deaths were soon to 
invest the Winthrop enterprise w^ith i:)ainfully romantic 
interest. Besides being one of the youngest, the groom 
was by far the richest of the company, and the largest 
adventurer in the joint stock also. Not three months 
more remained to him on earth, and in a will made before 
leaving England, of which the great Hampden was named 
executor, he had left his estates in part to the enterprise 
in which he had embarked his life. When his hour came, 
he declared that whatever was sacrificed in the furtherance 
of so o^reat a work could not be wasted, and such was the 
affection in which his neighbors held him, that as one 
after another to the number of two hundred fell asleep 
that fatal winter, until the habitations of the living failed 
to keep pace with the sepulchres of the dead, they found 



19 

consolation in the fact that their kindred \\'erc resting by 
the grave of Johnson. 

His lovely bride, flitting athwart the strong light of 
history for a moment, to vanish in the next, as the bright 
insect of a day flits across the sunbeam, gathers to herself 
all the poetry and sentiment of this puritanic picture. 
The good ship "Eagle," bought for the admiral and pilot 
of the fleet, had been rcchristened the "ArbeUa" in her 
honor, and though her resting place may be unknown, no 
nameless grave can hide the memory of her virtues, while 
the ship "Arbclla" keeps on her silent voyage down the 
ages. She had come, as was said in the quaint diction of 
the times, "from a paradise of plenty and pleasure, in the 
family of a noble earldom, into a wilderness of wants." 
All too willing to follow her young spouse wherever he 
might lead her on earth, she sojourned but a little here 
and herself led the way, anticipating him hy a month, on 
the everlasting journey. 

Small as the colony was, the little Endicott cottage^ 
with all its early fame for unbounded hospitality, was 
hardly large enough for those who made haste to welcome 
the coming Governor and his suite. But just beyond it, 
on the west, lay the principal thoroughfare of the village, 
laid out in the beginning, as it runs to-day, four rods in 
width from river to river, across the narrowest portion of 
our narrow town. The boat landings at either end have 
disappeared, as the coves of North and South River have 
given place to solid ground. Beneath its entire length 
thunder incessant trains freighted with life and wealth, 
and shake the sods Avhere the Governor's children played, 
as though riven by an earthquake. The Governor's 
cottage stood on this highway, not far from the corner 
now formed by the southeastern intersection of Federal 
and Washington streets. And just beyond the Gover- 



20 

nor's ''fa}Te house," was a spot west of the street and not 
far from the present site of the Sewall-street Meeting 
House, which was at once the highest central elevation in 
the town, and also the common point nearest the head 
waters of both the North and South River. A creek 
from the South River crossed the street now named for 
Richard Norman, extending nearly or quite to the site of 
Mechanic Hall, while the Court Houses occupy land which 
bounded another cove pushing in from the north. Being 
the defensible point of the little peninsula, this had been 
chosen, perhaps by master gunner Sharpe, who lived near 
by, as the site for a blockhouse fort. It was known as 
the Arbor Lot, or, being at the head of the harbor, I am 
inclined to think, as the Harbor Lot Fort. 

In this rude fortress doubtless reposed, for safety, the 
authenticated duplicate of the Charter of Charles I, as 
well as the silver seal of the company, the only one ever 
struck, both forwarded to Gov. Endicott by Higginson's 
fleet the year before. Here, too, hung suits of armor, — 
the halberds and partisans; the cuirasses of brass and 
corslets of chain and leather ; the match-locks and snaph- 
ances, "four foot in the barrel, without rests" each 
with its bandoleer and bullet bag ; the pikes and demi- 
pikes ; the gorgets and helmets ; the swords with cow- 
hide belts. 

Here, too, frowned from the parapet of this strong 
house the five great pieces of ordnance, so scrupulously 
consigned by the company in London in 1629 to the care 
of master gunner Shai'pe, and which now and again 
belched out their thunders to aAve the feeble remnant of a 
wasting race. Here met, for the fii'st meeting house was 
not yet built, the congregation for worship, the heads of 
households for govenmient, the young for catechising, the 
able-bodied for the manual of arms. Here Higginson 



21 

may have preached that first sermon before Winthrop, 
which was to prove the last sermon of his life. From 
these wooden battlements was to be had the most sweep- 
ing survey of the novel scene, and to this spot Master 
Endicott and his distinguished guests without doubt re- 
paired, for a better acquaintance with the people and the 
place. 

Nearly in fi*ont of the fort, stretched towards the east 
the narrow lane, since grown to Essex street, which con- 
nected the Arljor Lot and its cleared training field or 
esplanade on the eastern side, with that swampy tract 
extending from Shallop, now Collins Cove, and Planter's 
marsh, to the site of the Franklin Building. Part of this 
marsh became successively the Town Swamp, the Train- 
ing Field, the Common, the Mall, and now Washington 
Square. Pleasant street, and parts of Brown and Winter 
streets have since been cut through it on the one side, — 
Forrester, once Bath street, on another. But long after 
Winthrop's time it extended to the line of Essex street, 
including the creek which as late as 1802 gave Bath street 
that name. And this marshy tract was almost met by a 
cove flowing up from the harbor on the Elm street side 
about as for as the church of the Immaculate Conception. 
Thus the narrow neck upon which Conant and his men 
planted themselves in 1626 to await the recruits and 
succor promised by the Rev. John White, of Dorchester, 
was nearly severed b}'' the inroads of the sea at two sev- 
eral points, not far from Washington street on the Avest 
and Washington Square on the east. Between these 
points, on this "pleasant and fruitful neck," as Conant's 
friend Hubbard describes it, nestled the cottages of the 
early planters. The hamlet had grown, from the half 
score of houses which Higginson found in 1629, to a 
habitation for half a dozen scores of people, in 1630. 



22 

And this was the scene upon which Winthrop, Saltonstall 
and Dudley looked from the Arbor Lot Fort, under the 
mellow light of waning day. Higginson lived at the site 
of our Post Office, and Skelton at that of the Police 
Station. After these and Gov. Endicott, no persons were 
held in more esteem than Roger Conant, John Woodbury 
and Peter Palfray. It cannot be but that these worthies 
gathered at the fort. And Brackenbury, too, had come 
in his shallop from Bass River Side, and Jeffrey from Jef- 
frey's Creek, and Masconomo from his tented headland 
perhaps had sent, in birch canoes, an embassy of good 
will, for there was news from England, and news from 
England was then no every-day affair. 

Conant was there, and we can feel the pride with which 
he points out the first house built in Salem, the work 
of liis hands and his residence now, standing on the 
spot where has lately lived and died Richard Saltonstall 
Rogers ; Conant, the Governor at Cape Ann under the 
patent of Lord Sheffield ; Conant, who quit Plymouth in 
search of a more liberal system of worship ; Conant, 
that ^religious, sober and prudent gentleman," whose 
firmness alone, when threatened with desertion, saved to 
Endicott the foundations of his colony. The cottage east 
of Conant's is Peter Palfray's, and that west of Conant's 
is John Woodbury's, and Woodbury was there, for he 
was Conant's right hand man, — the first constable of 
Salem, selected in 1627 for a difficult mission to England, 
which he discharged with credit, and which must have 
made liim acquainted with the promoters of the enterprise 
tliis day arriving ; Woodbury, of whom since he was an 
ancestor of mine I may be pardoned for speaking with 
peculiar interest. Endicott himself was there ; Endicott, 
oftener reelected chief magistrate than any other Governor 
of Massachusetts ; Endicott, of whom the exhaustive 



23 

address delivered by his distinguished namesake and rep- 
resentative, Judge Endicott, two years ago, has left us 
nothing to say, — all these were there. Nor is it hard to 
guess the topics to which conversation leaned. The pano- 
rama before them was abundantly suggestive. Within 
its charmed horizon lay the bay then, as to-day, tossing 
and sparkling inthe glancing sunlight, dotted with islands 
now fresh with verdure, but then dark with forests — and 
locked, as now, within the wooded heights of the north 
shore and Naugus Head. On right and left the crystal 
currents of our lazy streams moved on, unvexed by 
bridges, to the sea, and there no friendly beacon w^arned 
the adventurous boatman of hidden ledges, — at night, no 
hospitable lighthouse called him home. And beyond all, 
the ocean, changeless, yet ever new, unscarred by time ! — 

Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now ! 

Across the rivers, in North and South Fields, might be 
seen the outlying farms of planters, wdiere Indian and 
settler plied the hoe together, while the birch canoe, and 
the dug-out, called their w^ater-horse, threaded each silver 
stream which served them for a lane. Roads they had 
none. Venice in all her arrogance of wealth had not 
such leao-ues of w^ater for her streets. Here on the south 
curled the wngwam fires of the Indian Camp in Forest 
Eiver Valley. Here, close at hand, rose the pallisadoed 
fort on Castle Hill. Turning to the north might be seen 
the shipyard from w^hich, the year before, Moulton and 
his men sent out the first craft of considerable size ever 
launched into the waters of Massachusetts. While across 
North River and fronting the Governor's house ranged 
themselves in straight, well ordered lanes flanked with 
small patches of pumpkins, tobacco and maize, the smoky 
huts of another Indian village, — the sagamore's town, — 



24 

oblong habitations, framed of bircli saplings, covered 
with mats of flagging, in weaving which, Indian girls 
anticipated the esthetic culture of household art, and 
together wearing the aspect of a camp of ornamented 
ambulance wagons, dismounted from their wheels. And 
everywhere beyond, spreading away, until the eye grew 
weary, dark, illimitable, impenetrable forest, pathless, 
vast and unsubdued. 

Such was the picture for whose fit setting the Topsfield 
hills reared their dark frame against a northern sky. But 
what added charm would the picture acquire, could Ave 
but fathom the thought of those who looked upon it, with 
Winthrop, for the first time to-day ! They were no 
pigmies, set by force of accident on a lofty pedestal and 
growing smaller as they rose. Before embarking in this 
venture they had counted its cost and grimly questioned 
the future. They had not turned their backs on English 
homes like theirs fi'om an}' mean anxiety to Ijetter their 
estates. The oppressions from which they fled would 
not have weighed on minds of meaner mould. They had 
not sacrificed and endured and braved, — they Avere not 
looking to sacrifice, endure and brave, without some 
consciousness of the great part they had been called to 
play. The world was to profit by their losses and to be 
a partner in their gains. They knew, when Conant re- 
solved to stay at the hazard of his life, though all others 
left him, that it was the future more than the present 
which hung upon his Avill. They knew, when Endicott, 
with that stout soul of his, struggled alone to evolve a 
polity out of a state of things no prescience of statesman- 
ship could foresee, administering law, repelhng force, 
conciliating the old planters, apportioning the lands, that 
it was the English CommouAvealth, now not far aAvay, 
which stood militant, in his person, on this virgin soil. 



25 

They knew, when Winthrop released from bonded service 
all the indentured labor of the company, putting his hand 
to ordinary work with the humblest, when not preoccupied 
with official duty, that caste and precedence were doomed 
on tliis continent, and that rank was not to rest on acci- 
dent but on manhood from that day forth forever. 

Some gleam at least of the dawning glory had reached 
their vision. They had looked for a city which hath 
foundations — a tabernacle that shall not be taken down. 
They were not to die without a vision of the land of 
promise. In this strong soil they had planted the tree 
which God has given us to water, — which was to spread 
its branches mightily, — to defy the tempest and to gather 
the world to its umljrao-eous shelter. 

May we not hail it as a happy omen for ]\Iassachusetts 
Bay, that while our Plymouth neighbors landed in the 
dreary winter solstice, the longest day of our leafy summer 
solstice welcomed the arrival of Winthrop? But the 
longest day has an end. Twilight is creeping on, and 
the entry of this crowded experience in the Governor's 
journal closes at last. These are his words ; "At night 
we returned to our ship, but some of the women stayed 
behind. In the meantime most of our people went on 
shore upon the land of Cape Ann, which lay very near 
us, and gathered store of fine strawbemes. An Indian 
came aboard us and lay there all night." Here ends the 
record. Winthrop, with his council of assistants, had 
returned before nightfall to his gallant ship. Shall we 
leave him there, standing apart upon that lofty quai-ter- 
deck of the Arbella, his face set westward, as his heart 
had long been wedded to the future, — "revolving many 
memories," — sighing for the morrow with its first taste 
of the Sabbath rest of New England, — peering into the 
open gates of sunset, until their purple glories faded into 



26 

night, — and forecasting, it may be, the destiny of a new- 
born world ? 

God said, — I am tired of kings; 

I suffer them no more ; 
Up to my ear the morning brings 

The outrage of the poor. 

Thinlv ye I made this ball 

A field of havoc and war, 
Where tyrants great and tyrants small 

Might harry the weak and poor? 

My angel,— his name is Freedom, — 

Choose him to be your king; 
He shall cut pathways east and west, 

And fend you with his wing. 

I will divide my goods ; 

Call in the wretch and slave : 
None shall rule but the humble, 

And none but Toil shall have. 

I will have never a noble, 

No lineage counted great : 
Fishers and choppers and ploughmen 

Shall constitute a State. 

Go, cut down trees in the forest, 

And trim the straightest boughs ; 
Cut down trees in the forest. 

And build me a wooden house. 

Call the people together. 

The young men and the sires, 
The digger in the harvest-field, 

Hireling, and him that hires. 

And here in a pine state-house 

They shall choose men to rule 
In every needful faculty. 

In church, and state, and school. 

Lo ! I uncover the land 

Which I hid of old time in the West, 

As the sculptor uncovers his statue, 
When he has wrought his best. 



THE LADY ARBELLA. 



A POEM WRITTEN FOR THE WINTHROP FIELD MEETING, 



By LUCY LAHCOM. 



THE LADY ARBELLA. 



Read by Rev. De Witt S. Clark, of the Tabernacle Church, Salem. 



The good ship Arbella is leading the fleet 

Away to the westward, through raiu-storm and sleet; 

The white cliffs of England have dropped out of sight; 

As birds from the warmth of their nest taking fliglit 

Into wider horizons, each fluttering sail 

Follows fast where the Mayflower fled on the gale 

With her resolute Pilgrims, ten winters before; — 

And the fire of their faith lijihts the sea and the shore. 



There are yeomen and statesmen ; the learned and rude ; 
One brotherhood; jealousy cannot intrude 
Between heart and heart; with one purpose they go, — 
To knit life to life, a new nation, and grow 
In the strengtli of the Lord. There are maidens discreet, 
And saintliest matrons ; but none is so sweet 
As the delicate blush-rose fi'om Lincoln's old hall, 
he Lady Arbella, the flower of them all. 

Beloved and loving, one stands at her side, 

A bridegroom well matched with so lovely a bride. 

"Wise Winthrop is balancing care in Ms mind 

For the colony's weal, for the wife left behind ; 

And godly and tolerant Phillips is there 

To comfort his shipmates with blessing and prayer: 

One and all, tliey have taken tlieir lives in their hand, 

To be scattered as seed in a wilderness land. 

(20) 



30 



There is hope in their eyes, though it gleams through regret; 

They go not as those who can lightly forget 

The Church, their clear mother, the land of their birth, 

In the glamour that fluslies an unexplored earth — 

A limitless continent, fringing the rim 

Of the silent sea-vastness with promises dim; 

And their love, reaching bacli from the voyage begun, 

Links Old and New England forever as one. 

They drift through blank midnight; tliey toss in the mist, 
Blown hither and thither as wild winds may list. 
Moons wane, ere a glimpse of the land that they seek 
Breaks the chaos of billow and fog: — though the cheek 
Of Arbella grows pale, with a clear, kindling eye, 
■she says, "It is well that we go, though we die." 
And the heart of the bridegroom beats Iiigh at her side. 
In response to the undismayed heart of his bride. 

And still, side by side, they keep watch on the deck, 
Till the faint sliore approaches, — an outline — a speck 
That wavers and sinks, and arises again. 
Undefined, on the outermost verge of the main. 
And lo ! on a golden June morning, a smell 
As of blossoming gardens, borne over the swell 
Of the weltering brine; cliff and headland that dip 
Their green robes in the sea, leaning out to the ship ! 

And shining above them, afar on the sky. 

Where the coast-line trends inland, the snow summits high, 

A glimmer of crystal ! The lady's rapt gaze 

Lingers long on that wonder of filmy white haze, 

As a vision of mountains celestial, tliat rise 

On the soul of the dying, who nears Paradise ! 

Did she know, could she dream, that to her it was given 

But to touch at this new world, and pass on to heaven? 

There looms Agamenticus, beckons Cape Ann ; 
There a smoke-wreath reveals Masconomo's red clan. 
Or the camp-fire of settlers, and hei'e a canoe — 
Here a shallop steers out to the storm-beaten crew; 
The low islands part, as an opening door, 
And they glide in, and anchor in sight of the shore, 
Where the wild roses' fragrance, the strawberries' scent 
With the music of song-bird and billow are blent. 



31 

Did the Lady Arbclla's light foot touch the beach? 

Did the sweet-brier SAvay to her lau^li and her speech? 

Waves wash away footprints ; winds sweep from the air 

Ghid echoes — fresh odors ; — her memory is there ! 

And the wild rose is sweeter on Bass-River-Side 

For breathing where once breathed the sweet English bride; 

And the moan of the surges a pathos has caught 

From her presence there, brief as the flight of a thought. 

Grave Endicott welcomes his beautiful guest. 
At last, in the wilderness, shall she find rest, 
And dream of the cities to rise at her feet 
In a nation where mercy and righteousness meet? 
Dear Lady Arbella ! so brave and so meek ! 
Too fragile a flower for this atmosphere bleak, — 
When the rose shed its petals on Bass-River-Side, 
The blush rose of Lincoln had faded and died. 

But a soul cannot fail of its gracious intent; 

We are known, and we live, through the good that we meant. 

The seed will spring up, that was watered with tears; 

If an angel looked on, through those first dreary years 

Of the colony's childhood, and bore up its prayer, 

The spirit of Lady Arbella was there; 

And, to whatever Eden her footsteps have flown, 

New England still claims her — forever our own ! 

For the lady arose to her womanhood then. 

When gently and yeomanry simply were men, 

In communion of hardship. All honor be theirs 

Whose iiames on her forehead the Commonwealth wears, — 

AVho planted the roots of our freedom ! Nor yet 

The blossoms that died in transplanting forget, — 

The true-hearted women who perished beside 

The Lady Arbella, the fair English bride! 



ADDRESSES. 



The President briefl}' alluded to the three migrations 
from the mother-land to Salem previous to the one the 
250th anniversary of which we this day commemorate. 
1st, the arrival of Koger Conant in 1(526 ; 2d, of John 
Endicottin September, 1628 ; 3rd, of Francis Higginson, 
in the sunnner of 1629, Avho, soon after his arrival, organ- 
ized the First Church. 

"VVe have with us to-day, Col. Thomas Wentworth 
Higginson, a lineal descendant of Francis Higginson, and 
also a member of Governor Long's staff. Shall we have 
the pleasure of hearing from him ? 

RESPONSE OF COL. T. W. HIGGINSON, OF CAMBRIDGE. 

Mr. Chairman, and, I .vqyj^ose I may say, Fellow-members of 
the Essex Institute: 

I AM very glad to respond to any call, Avhether in be- 
half of that third migration, or of the governorship of 
Massachusetts which began with Endicott and Winthrop, 
and which is now represented by my worthy chief. Gov- 
ernor Long, But I should speak with diffidence after the 
eloquence to which we have listened, after the beautiful 
poem, whose gi-ace was so charmingly divided between the 
reading and the rhyme. But for the fact that I have left 
the living Governor behind me, I should only have been 
able to represent a few dead Governors of a century or two 
ago. There is this sort of appropriateness in the present 

3 • (33) 



34 

situation of aftUirs, that whereas, just about the time of 
the landing of VYinthrop on this very spot, I fancy that 
Endicott and the people of that day thought there was one 
Governor too much, we at this moment think there is a 
Governor too little. [Laughter.] 

I thought as I sat at your hospitable board partaking of 
your sandwiches with hearty relish (which I trust has 
always been characteristic of my race) that, if you were 
feeding me, I was, — retrospectively at least, — supplying 
you with a place whereon to feed. I do not know that 
you are aware that you are at this moment, — retrospec- 
tively, and supposing I had my rights, — trespassing on 
my property. I may be mistaken in the boundaries, l)ut 
I fancy this is a part of the old Higginson farm. I think 
the last Ilio'i'inson who was here used to welcome others 
to tills spot, instead of being welcomed by others, and I 
wish to be equally hospitable. [Laughter.] I do not 
know that I inherit one of the personal features of Col. 
John Higginson, but I do wish he had bequeathed me his 
JSTeck. [Laughter . ] 

There is a common delusion that leads us to conceive 
our New England ancestry as tame and prosaic ; and to 
assume that there was nothing in its early records to call 
forth our enthusiasm. But there are no people in the 
world prouder of their ancestral tree than are the men and 
women who hear me to-day ; there is no view in the world 
that should bring up nobler, tenderer recollections than the 
little strip of blue ocean before 3"our eyes. There are no 
records of migration, there are no records of the founda- 
tion of a city more eloquent, more dignified, more thought- 
ful, more touching, than the early annals of Salem, than 
the letters of Winthrop, and, I may say Avithout assump- 
tion, than the journals Francis Higginson left behind him. 
The beauties of this place were never painted in more 



35 

appropriate colors than they painted them. The story of 
that noble enter})rise was never told in more simple, more 
direct language than they told it themselves. The sweet- 
ness of human feeling, the tenderness of personal joy and 
sorrow never have been written in any letters between 
husband and wife more exquisitely than they ai-e M-ritten 
in the letters of Winthrop ; although it is perfectly true 
that she was his third wife, and something of that sweet- 
ness may have come from prolonged and reiterated prac- 
tice. [Laughter and applause.] 

It is the agreeable task of the Essex Institute to com- 
bine, in the study of nature, and in its historical research, 
all that is most interesting in that period of our history. 
We smile at the dusty traditions in the unravelling of 
which some of your antiquarians spend their lives. We 
Avonder at the hopefulness that expects any good shall 
result from these dull details. Yet it was the influence of 
precisely this material and this place that added another to 
the world's great authors through the genius of Hawthorne. 
In every step you take, every point you add to the knowl- 
edge of external nature or of the inner domestic life of that 
early period, the Essex Institute may be adding to the 
materials which some futiu-e Hawthorne, now growing up 
unknown, may yet employ. And if you could extend 
your investigations in Natural History far enough, and tell 
us what under heaven those red and yellow flowers^ could 
have been that Francis Higginson found spread over these 
waters, acres at a time, in 1G29, his descendants will be 
very grateful. I have not a doubt of his veracity, hoAv- 
ever, when I consider the fact that he was the tirst historian 

6 Jlr. Higginson arrived rear miilsnninier. At this period of tlie year, great 
numbers of jelly-fisbes (tlie Cyanen arrtica, Aurelia flariduln, and other species) 
are observed on tlic snrfa<'e ol" the water near the coast. I'ossiblj- specimens of 
these animals, some having the rcscnililance of flowers, may liave attracted the 
notice of the voyager and have thus been mentioned in liis Journal. 



36 

to point out the existence of lions on Cape Ann and the 
caution with which he did it. After enumerating a long 
list of animals he says, "The skins of all these animals 
have I seen, but the skin of the lion I have not seen." So 
particular was he about taking the responsibility of the 
Cape Ann lions upon himself ! 

I have sometimes thoui>:ht in readino; the accounts of 
these celebrations, that the Essex Institute had, in a man- 
ner, fulfilled his predictions about these animals. I am 
sure that so long as 3^ou have your present President and 
efficient committee of arrangements you will always secure 
a moderate supply of small lions for your platform. 
[Laughter and applause.] 

Introduces /7b??. G. WasJiingion TFarren, of Boston ; 
for many years President of The Bunker Hill Monument 
Association. 

EEMARKS OF MR. WARREN. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: — 

I feel rather diffident in attempting to address you after 
the very finished })roduction to which we have listened. 
I am told that Dean Stanley when here, immediately after 
his arrival in tliis country, expressed astonishment at the 
zeal and reverence with which you commemorate these 
anniversaries. I am told he said "there is nothing like 
it in my own home." 

A period of two hundred and fifty years carries us back 
a long way. If you divide the Christian Era into only 
eight parts, the period of two hundred and fifty years 
is a greater period than one of those parts. And then, 
sir, it is a great help to lis to compare these mile- 
stones of time. By this comparison we find how easy it 
is to grasp the past. Why, Mr. President, we both re- 
member the celebration of the two-hundredth year since 



37 

these events occurred. I remember the year of my gradu- 
ation, of hearing the great and classic Everett deliver the 
address on the two-hundredth anniversary of the arrival 
of Governor Winthrop in Charlestown. Perhaps you 
people of Salem have not yet forgiven Winthrop for 
leaving Salem and going southward ; but if you had been 
living then he certainly would have remained here. We 
can imagine him in his boat, which was probably within 
sight of this place, navigating his way towards the mouth 
of the Mystic river, to find, as he says in his quaint lan- 
guage, "a place for sitting down." He arrived in Charles- 
town on the memorable seventeenth of June (O. S.), 
wdiich seemed to typify the great event of the seventeenth 
of June (N. S.) that was to occur nearly a century and 
a half later. How significant are these dates ! It is my 
fortune to belong to the First church in Boston, which 
Winthrop more than any other one instituted, and to whose 
covenant he was the first to put his name ; and I doubt 
if there is anything in this country more ancient than that 
same covenant, which is preserved to the present day, and 
recognized as binding upon the worshippers. 

Boston is to have its anniversary on the seventeenth of 
September next. Because there was an insufficiency of 
water, Winthrop went over the river and there had another 
"sitting down." And now in the Old South, on the sev- 
enteenth of September next, is to be commemorated the 
anniversary of this event, — the Old South which is erected 
on land which belonged to Winthrop. How significant ! 
It is a great good fortune that we have preserved that 
historic building, not only for the connection it has with 
the revolution, not only for the great speeches made 
within its "walls by the heroes and fathers of the republic, 
but because it marks the spot where the first governor of 
the commonwealth resided. And, friends, let us re- 



38 

member that it is to the exertions of the patriotic Avomen 
of Massachusetts that the preservation of this historic 
landmark is due. [Applause]. 

I tliink, INIr. President, that it is a matter of congratu- 
lation that the attention of our people and of the rising 
generation is being more and more devoted to the colonial 
history of the land rather than to the revolutionary period. 
In my l:)oyhood the principal reading-books were made up 
of the language and the eloquence of the revolutionary 
times ; of opposition to authority, engendering habits and 
feelino;s unconoenial to the Ijest growth of the intellect. 
Fortunately, we can go back more than a century beyond 
and dwell upon that life and those times with profit ; 
back to the time when Winthrop came with christian 
honor and founded this great commonwealth. And as 
long as Massachusetts shall be remembered in the Avorld 
as the mother of Presidents and of Vice-Presidents, of 
heroes, and martyrs, and statesmen, so long will the 
memory of Winthrop be cherished as its christian founder. 

Introduces Hon. George B. Loring, of Salem, Rep- 
resentative in U. S. Congress from this District. 

REMARKS OF MR. LORING. 

Mr. President and fellow-citizens : — 

I am very happy to learn from 3^our chairman what I 
represent. It seems that after dealing with the historic 
governors, and calling upon the representatives of the 
present race of governors, we are now to turn our atten- 
tion for a short time to that valuable institution known in 
this countr}^ as the General Government. 

But without entering into any dissertation upon the gov- 
ernment under which we live, I desire to call your atten- 
tion to the inheritance which you can justly call your own. 



39 

The elocjuent and admirable oration to which we have just 
listened has brought vividly before us the first steps that 
were taken towards the estal)lishnient of a great republic 
on these shores, a republic based on the fundamental 
princii)les of popular freedom and popular sovereignty. 
I have never been surprised at the remark of Dean Stanley 
that the celebration of American anniversaries greatly 
astonished and interested him. Well he might be aston- 
ished, for there are none like them anywhere else on the 
foce of the globe. Can you, sir, mention a po})ular English 
anniversary? England can turn to her decisive battles, to 
the beheading of a king, to the futile attempt to organize a 
republic to end in the reestablishment of a monarchy ; but 
she cannot call upon her people to celebrate such events. 
Do you, sir, know of an event in the history of France 
or Germany, or Italy, or Eussia, calling for a public anni- 
versary upon which the masses of the people can gather 
together at the close of every hundred years, and con- 
gratulate themselves ? We have a strong popular sentiment 
and principle which Ave can call our own, and which is the 
stamp of our nationality. Nowhere on the face of the earth 
is there a popular, public anniversary except upon Ameri- 
can soil, — so far as the representative of the General 
Government has been able to discover. 

Now, sir, that is our inheritance. I have always thought 
it a great thing to have an ancestry. [Laughter] . An 
ancestry, not a pedigree ; and I have been greatly im- 
pressed to-day, while listening to the able historical dis- 
quisition of our eminent townsman, and to the beautiful 
word-pictiu-c drawn by a descendant of one of the founders 
of this commonwealth, — with the courage, the heroism 
of those early times, and with the wisdom and devotion 
which guided that ancient people in the foundation of the 
institutions which they have transmitted to us. Seated 



40 

here on this hard barren spot of land (my friend, Col. 
Higginson, wishes he had inherited it ; but, if he had 
had my experience in farming, he might think himself 
fortunate that the inheritance did not come to him), I 
have admired more and more the inheritance of this 
people, fastened on this barren soil. What is this rich 
possession ? It is an inheritance unheard of before upon 
the face of the earth. Our fathers made us heirs of the 
most important movement towards self-government known 
in the history of the world. They gave us that marvellous 
decade in which, on the shores of Massachusetts, popular 
government was established. It is not easy to say, nor 
is it, perhaps, important to know, who was the first Gov- 
ernor of Massachusetts. It is enough for us to know that 
between 1620 and 1630 Eoger Conant, with his little hand 
of wayfiu-ers, planted his feet ujion these shores, and left 
the impress of his religious fervor ; that, following him, 
came John Endicott, he of the mailed hand and the the- 
ological heart (is that a good expression, sir?) ; that 
after him came John Winthrop, graceful and scholarly, 
the grand heroic figure of these early colonial days. And 
shall I forget John Carver, the admirable, the honest, the 
pure, the godly, the self-sacrificing pilgrim? These are 
the four Governors who made these ten years memoral)le, 
immortal ; who instituted the first popular government in 
the world. Roger Conant, John Endicott, John Winthrop, 
John Carver, — these are your ancestors. Plymouth, 
Trimountain, Naumkeag, Cape Ann, — these are your in- 
heritance. What a story do they tell for the foundation 
of government on those principles which to-day make our 
republic strong among the nations of the world ! You 
can turn to no other spot, no other decade, no other cen- 
tury for this glorious consummation. 

These ancestors of ours who gave us these ten immoi-tal 



41 

years came from great associations to perform without 
ostentation their great deeds. They were familiar with 
Milton, and had, perhaps, read with him his great protests 
and his divine song. They had seen Shakespeare, and, I 
doubt not, those who dared go to the theatre had heard 
his inspired words spoken by his own lips. They had 
admired the scientific wisdom and the political liberality 
of Lord Bacon, whose star had set just before they left 
their native shores. They had taken part in the great 
events out of which came Cromwell and his Common- 
wealth. Hampden and Pym were their friends and com- 
panions. No wonder they came here inspired with the 
highest political purpose, filled with the sublimest religious 
fiiith, confident and trusting — as the}^ confided and trusted 
in God, — in the power of a cultivated christian people to 
govern themselves by institutions of their own creating. 
And they had a vision, not of an English Commonwealth, 
but of a new destiny, of an American repul^lic, a vision 
that has ripened into reality in that General Government 
which I have the honor now to represent. They gave us, 
in the first place, the ownership of this soil we are so 
proud to call our own. They gave us the institutions 
under which we live. They gave us a land-tenure pro- 
nounced by an illustrious son of an illustrious Salem 
father, — the younger Nathaniel Bowditch, — to l)e the 
most perfect system of popular conveyancing on earth. 
It was not at Jamestow)i among that adventurous and 
chivalrous band Avho followed the fortunes of John Smith ; 
it was not amons; the Dutch colonies at the mouth of the 
Hudson ; it was not among those who enjoyed the pro- 
found constitutional prerogatives laid down by the great 
John Locke in the far away Carolinas, — but here on the 
Iligginson farm, here on the rocky shores of Plymouth 
where the land was valueless, was laid the foundation 



42 

of our republic. The very barrenness of this land made 
us a commercial, and an inventive people, and laid 
the foundations of that financial prosperity Avhicli we en- 
joy. It was here the freedom of religious sentiment was 
planted and proclaimed, which gave John Endicott a 
perfect right to drive the Browns home because they could 
not agree with him, and which drove Roger Williams to 
seek for freedom where he did not find it. Here the 
suffrage of the world Avas established ; here that decree 
was first proclaimed which makes it possible to take from 
the ranks of the people mayors of cities, representatives 
to state and national Icoislatures, deleoates to national 
conventions who nominate successful candidates for the 
presidency, governors and chief magistrates in all our 
civil spheres and organizations, — an universal suffrage 
W'hich I firmly believe will one day enable woman also to 
exercise her choice in the selection of those who are to 
make laws for the government of herself and those whom 
she loves. [Applause.] 

These arc the rights and privileges which were estab- 
lished here on this hard inhospitable shore, and which 
were proclaimed in that immortal decade, — immortal in 
all that makes men great and good, — great in spirit, great 
in toil, great in enthusiasm, great in determination, great 
in hope. This is the inheritance those great leaders have 
transmitted to us, and which we must transmit, unim- 
paired, to those who come after us. [Applause.] 

I have endeavored to perform the duties assigned me in 
one branch of the general government, and I have wit- 
nessed with more and more astonishment the beneficial 
work born of the bitter and violent contests there. The 
skies may be darkened by heavy clouds, the country may 
seem to be threatened with sudden and sweeping disaster 
and ruin, but always the break has come and the blue sky 



43 

shininiT Uirouoh the rift has j^ivcn us assurtmce that God 
is with us still. And when I say this I know that above all 
strife, above all antagonisms, above all party dissensions, 
above all laws and resolves of general courts, above and 
beyond all the disappointments that fall upon those who 
march along the path of political glory in this land, there 
is still a public conscience, there is still strong common 
sense, there is still an iron will. It was this "voice 
of the people " that gave us the victory in our great war 
for freedom. It Avas this that, when the appalling de- 
struction of civil war burst upon us, confounding the wis- 
dom and trying the hearts of men, brought us national 
redemption and increased national power. It was this 
that gave us the power to preserve the financial honor 
of the land. It was this that gave us the power to pro- 
claim the law laid down here by the pilgrims and which 
has become the law of the whole people. Under the care 
of the good God, ftdse counsels never have prevailed, and 
never will prevail in this land while this inheritance remains 
within us. The great doctrines of fathers are preserved to 
us, and to us are given in full measure the fruits of their 
labors. How can a government founded by them fail? 
How can institutions blessed by their prayers be destroyed ? 
As the representative of the general government, I con- 
gratulate you and myself that this work of celebrating 
these memorial days has fallen into hands so patient and 
watchful as those of the Essex Institute. I did not come 
to-day expecting to speak, but to listen to those words of 
wisdom which I always hear when the Institute meets at 
a Field Meeting, and your dignified and venerable leader, 
who believes in the greatness of our institutions, and 
would piously preserve the memory of those who founded 
them, proclaims what shall be said on such occasions. 
[Applause.] 



44 
Introduces Gen. Henry K. Oliver, Mayor of Sulcm. 

REMARKS OF MR. OLIVER. 

Mayor Oliver said that after the excellent perform- 
ances of the afternoon, he would not, at this late hour, 
trespass further upon the time of the meeting, but in a 
word he would express his pleasure, in behalf of the citA^, 
at this opmmemoration. 



Introduces SetJi Low, Esq., of New York. A son of 
an honored son of Salem who was educated at our schools, 
and now one of the most distinguished merchants in the 
commercial emporium of America. Mr. Low, though un- 
expectedly called upon, has consented to say a few words. 

REMARKS of SETH LOW, ESQ. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: — 

I appear in resi)onse to your call only as the voice of 
a son of Salem, who would be glad to be here but that he 
is on the other side of the ocean. The voice speaks, you 
know, in response to the promptings of the heart. 

I have been told by a friend that there are no gentlemen 
present, except myself, under seventy years of age. Let 
me add that I also understand all the ladies are under 
twenty-five. It follows, of course, from my age, as the 
ladies will understand, that I have no special recollection 
of the landing of Winthrop, and I must lead your thoughts 
into some new channel. 

As I stood in your Essex Institute a few hours ago, a 
complete set of the directories of the City of Buftalo was 
shown to me, and by a glance one could see the constantly 
increasing growth of the city. Yes, I said, this shows 
the growth of the city, but not its history. And so it is 



45 

with Salem. I think it must always be your pride and 
glory that much of your city's history must be sought 
outside of herself. Wherever your children have gone 
(and where have they not gone ?) , there you have a right 
to trace the influences, and, l)y consequence, the history of 
Salem. 

As I come here, almost a stranger, I feel as though I 
w^as carried back to the days of your commercial pros- 
perity. My father's career has been in commerce, as has 
been mine since leaving college, and as I looked at your 
Avarehouses I thouoht of the sadness that must come over 
the hearts of those Avho knew Salem in the days of her 
commercial glory, and who now look upon the changed 
scene. 

I do not advert to this in order to fill your minds 
with sad thoughts, but with this encouraging one, — that 
change dofes not necessarily imply decay. As I walked 
through your streets almost for the first time, I was 
struck by the strange intermingling of the old and the 
new ; and I felt that here was growing up a new life. 

So long as your city has a hold on the future, as well as 
on the past, there is no cause for regret. Her future will 
be all the fuller because of the rich memories which 
cluster about her earlier life. I congratulate you that 
here in Salem, while there certainly is change, I do not 
see decay. The time will come, indeed I think it has 
already come, when the sons of Salem, and her sons' sons, 
returning to the old city from whatever distant spot, in 
the language of one of your own Massachusetts poets, 
can gather here 

"from the pavement's crevice 
As a floweret of the soil, 
The nobility of labor 
The long pedigree of toil." 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

The following extracts from letters received 

WERE READ BY KeV. E. S. AtWOOD, OF SaLEM. 



Danvers, 6th mo., 19, 1880. 
Robert S. Rantoul, Esq., 
My dear friend : 

I see by the call of the Essex Institute that some proba- 
bility is suggested that I may furnish a poem for the oc- 
casion of its meeting at "The Willows" on the 22d. I 
would be glad to make the implied probability a fact, but 
I find it difficult to put my thoughts into metrical form, 
and there will be little need of it, as I understand a lady 
of Essex county, who adds to her modern culture and 
rare poetical gifts the l)est spirit of her Puritan ancestry, 
has lent the interest of her verse to the occasion. 

It was a happy thought of the Institute to select for its 
first meeting of the season, the day and the place of the 
landing of the great and good Governor, and permit me 
to say, as thy father's old friend, that its choice for orator, 
of the son of him whose genius, statesmanship and elo- 
quence honored the place of his birth, has been equally 
happy. As I look over the list of the excellent worthies 
of the first emigrations, I find no one who, in all respects, 
occupies a nobler place in the early colonial history of 
Massachusetts than John Winthrop. Like Vane and 
Milton he was a gentleman as well as a Puritan, a cul- 

(4G) 



47 

tared and enlightened statesman as well as a God-fearing 
Christian. It was not under his long and wise Chief 
Magistracy that religious bigotry and intolerance hung 
and tortured their victims, and the terrible delusion of 
witchcraft darkened the sun at noonday over Essex. If 
he had not quite reached the point where, to use the words 
of Sir Thomas ]Moorc, he could "hear heresies talked and 
yet let the heretics alone," he was in charity and forbear- 
ance far in advance of his generation. 

I am sorry tliat I must miss an occasion of so much 
interest. I hope you will not lack the presence of the 
distinguished citizen who inherits the best qualities of his 
honored ancestor, and who, as a statesman, scholar, and 
patriot, has added new lustre to the name of Winthrop. 
With sincere regard, thy friend, 

JOIIX G. WlIITTIER. 



Beookline, Mass., 12th June, 1880. 

My Dear Sir : 
I see no prospect of my being able to be with you, 
except in spirit, on the 22d instant, and thus, though I 
united with the Institute to commemorate Endicott's land- 
ing, I must leave it to others to celebrate the advent of 
my own ancestor, with the companj^ and the charter. 
This note requires no answer. I write mainly to renew 
my regrets that I am constrained to ho absent from the 
commemoration of an event, which, wholly apart from 
any personal considerations, is the most noteworthy event 
in the early history of ^Massachusetts, New England, and, 
indeed, of our whole country. The transfer of the charter 
and "Chief Government" from London to New England, 
and the arrival of the governor and company of the 



48 

Massachusetts Bay, can hardly be counted second to any 
event in American annals, after America was discovered 
and began to be colonized. 

Yours very truly, 

Robert C. Winthrop. 
Dr. H. Wheatland, 
President Essex Institute. 



Cambridge, June 12, 1880. 
My Dear Sir ; 

I am very sorry that I cannot accept your invitation 
for the 22d inst. That is the day of the annual meeting 
of the Trustees of Phillips Exeter Academy, a board of 
which I am President, and must therefore attend the 
meeting. 

With hearty thanks for the courtesy and kindness of 
the invitation, 

Very truly yours, 

A. P. Peabody. 



Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 
Executive Department. 

Boston, June 14, 1880. 
Dr. Plenry Wheatland, 
Salem, Mass. : 

I thank you for your invitation for the 22d, and regret 
very much that I cannot attend an anniversary so inter- 
esting in itself, and which promises so much in view of 
the distinguished gentlemen who will take part in the 
exercises. I shall not l)e able, however, to attend as I 
am engaged the same day at Wellesley College. With 



49 

thanks for your courtesy and best wishes for the success 

of the occasion, 

I am yours, very truly, 

John D. Long. 



Xew York, 15 June, 1880. 
My Dear Sir : 

I am greatly disappointed that continued absence from 
home obliges me to decline your invitation to attend the 
Field jNIeeting of the Essex Institute at Salem Neck on 
the 2 2d inst. 

These commemorative occasions in the history of Salem 
have an especial interest to me, and no one of them cer- 
tainl}'' could come nearer my heart than the 250th anni- 
versary of the landing of those great and good men, 
Saltonstall and "Winthrop, who left luxurious homes to 
help lay the foundations of this great Christian liepublic. 

HoAV much I should enjoy listening to the eloquent 
address and melodious words of orator and poet, while 
sitting on the very shore where these men from the 
"Arbella" and their tender children first landed after their 
long and weary voj^age ! 

I wish you success in j^our "Field meeting" and thank 
you for so kindly remembering me. 

Very faithfully yours, 

Leverett Saltonstall. 

Dr. Henry Wheatland, 
Pres. Essex Institute. 

Boston, June 16, 1880. 
Dear sir : 

I regret extremely that my absence in the West, at the 
time of the meeting of the Essex Institute, will debar me 

4 



50 

from attending and listening to tlie proceedings of the 
day. I regret tliis the more as a like canse prevented my 
attendance at j'^our Endicott Festival. 

I remain very truly yours, 

Chas. Levi Woodbury. 
Henry Wheatland, Esq., 
President Essex Institute, 
Salem, Mass. 

Dorchester, June 17, 1880. 
My dear president : 

Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to meet 
the members of the Essex Institute and to join in the 
services which are to commemorate the landing of Win- 
throp 250 3^ears ago. But I am just off from a similar 
service here yesterday, — the settlement of the town of 
Dorchester, — being pushed into the pulpit where I was 
obliged to preach for a while to the people. 

Not having fully recovered from the combat which I 
had Avith the pavements of the State House last year, 
I think it will not be prudent to go so far from home as 
Salem, at present, and as "discretion is the better part of 
valor," you will please accept this as my apology for not 
being with you on the 2 2d instant. 

With profound respect, 

Yours, etc., 

Marshall P. Wilder. 



51 



The President mentioned that this day also commemo- 
rates the birthday of Kev. William Bcntlcy, D- D., the 
pastor of the East church, Salem, and one of her most 
devoted antiquarians and historical scholars. It is highly 
appropriate to conclude these exercises with the reading, 
by Rev. George 11. Ilosmcr, the present occupant of that 
pulpit, of the following communication entitled: — 

A tribute to the memory of William Bentley, D. D., tuith 
a narrative found ainom/ his papers, of a drive by 
Benjamin Ward, in company with his grandfather 
Miles Ward, about the town, in 1760: — p)repared 
by Stanley Waters: — 

This day, which by the dutiful remembrance of their 
descendants commemorates the arrival upon these shores of 
that devoted company. Sir Richard Saltonstall, Governor 
John AVinthrop, and other "Fathers of the New England 
Colony," by a hapj^y coincidence marks also the anniver- 
sary of the birth of a man, justly entitled to rank with 
these honored names as a founder, thou<2:h living; more 
than a century later, of the broad and elevated civilization, 
in which our State and community share, — a man who 
joined the breadth and gentleness of Saltonstall with the 
efficiency and singlc-mindedncss of Winthrop, — "the late 
learned and catholic Dr. Bentley," a name revered by 
those who sat at his feet in his lifetime, and dear to their 
descendants, wdio can, i)erliaps even better than they, com- 
pare his high qualities and great acquirements with those 
of the masters of the present time, and estimate the ser- 
vice his character and life have done in giving this com- 
munity some of the notable qualities Avhich have marked it. 



52 

William Bcntley, born in Boston, June 22, 1759, pastor 
of the East church from 1783 for the rest of his life, 
died the evening of Dec. 29, 1819; dropping dead in- 
stantly on his return from an errand of charity that 
winter's night. This is not the time nor the occasion to 
recount his actions, — to enlarge upon his excellences. 
Suffice it to say that he was a man far in advance of his 
time, an original and deep and free thinker, yet of a 
truly religious nature ; a scholar of a reputation not con- 
fined to his own country, and of a wide erudition ; an 
enthusiastic student of natural history and philosophy, of 
social science, of languages even those of the far distant 
East, of statistics of which he was a careful gatherer ; of 
history and its lessons as especially bearing upon the wel- 
fare of mankind ; of politics as they affected the welfare 
of his native land to which he was so patriotically attached ; 
a lover of art, a zealous antiquarian, and indefatigably 
industrious in collecting and recording anything relating 
to his studies, his pursuits, his parish, and his life. 

Add to this that he was a philanthropist of the broadest 
views, a pastor the idol of his peoplcj and a distinguished 
preacher, and we have a combination of excellences rarely 
to be met with in one man, and worthy of remembrance 
by us all. 

It has fallen to me lately to inspect the rich and volu- 
minous evidences of his talents and his industry (deposited, 
in the care of a society of a kindred nature to your own, 
but unfortunately far away from this the scene of his 
labors where they would be of daily service to the local 
student) , and I send you an extract therefrom that may 
prove not uninteresting, considering not only the addi- 
tional light thrown by it upon our early topography, and 
the interesting information relative to the place chosen 
for your meeting, but also the great affection Dr. Bentley 



53 

felt for the Neck, with its beautiful scenery and interest- 
ing historical associations, as shown by its being the 
chosen object of his daily niornina- walk. 

The following conversation, prefaced by a slight genea- 
logical account, is the sole contents of a small manuscript 
book, found among Dr. Bentley's papers, and written by 
Benjamin Ward, the grandson of the venerable Miles, 
who Avas born in 1G73, and died in 17G4, four years after 
the event related, over ninety years old. 

Benjamin, the grandson, was born in 1739, — a young 
man just of age therefore in 17G0 ; he lived in Essex 
street, opposite Daniels, near the old East meeting-house, 
where he was a constant attendant, being also a parish 
officer, and a Avarm friend of its pastor. He died June 
11, 1812. This is his account: 

"My Grandfather j\Iiles about the year 1760 called on 
me to get a chaise for he wanted to ride round the town. 
When Ave Avare in the chaise he told me to drive doAvn 
to the Neck. I asked him Avhy the street Avas laid out so 
crooked. He answered, there Avas no street laid out, — 
that there Avas a SAvamp from jNIr. Higginson's land at the 
corner of the common doAvn to Collins' Cove, north of 
the Neck-gate ; — that Avlien a cart Avhent from the Gar- 
rison on the Neck up to Town, they went by the South 
side of the Swamp, and Avlien the people built, they set 
their houses along by the cart Avay, that there Avas a 
AA'harfe on the creek back of Mr. Gerrish's house," Avhere 
the shallops took in their stores, and a lane Avent from 
the Main street across Virgin Point over to Shallop Cove 
Avhere they the shallops laid up in the Avinter season. 

As Ave Avent over the Neck he told me Avhere there was 
a roAv of cottages from the land near the Point of Kocks 

" This was near the coi ner of Essex and East streets. 



54 

downe to the l)rid2:e to cross over fo Winter Islnnd. He 
shew me where Mr. Abbot's lish house stood and fish 
street was that lead [ing] to Fish street wharfe, which 
was abont 20 rods northerly of the now Winter Island 
Wharfe. That the Island was filled with flakes to dry 
fish on : comeing from the Neck he shewed me where the 
North Blockhouse stood, and that Pickets were set from 
the blockhouse to lowatcr mark. I asked him where 
lo water-mark was. He then said, the river above the 
l)arr was all a saltmarsh except the channells, and one 
channell came round Eoache's Point and passed round 
towards the blockhouse and continued round to the Creek 
to the northward of the Neckgatc ; — that to cross the 
channell at the Picketts was up to a man's breast or neck 
at lowater, after he was a man grown. I asked him 
where the dirt came from to fill up the channell. He said 
there was a point of land between Shallop Wharfe and 
Shallop Cove to the Eastward of the lane which contained 
about five acres which Avas washed away into Collins' Cove 
and filled up the channells ; that the South River was Salt 
Marsh all above the point of land by ]\Ir. Elvins' where 
the flats now were except the channells and Breaks into 
the Coves. 

When we came up to Daniels St. , he said if I would go 
round by Mr. Palfray's he would show me how that river 
was when he was young, — when we came near the bot- 
tom of Curtis St., he sayd, now stop the chaise, Benjamin, 
and I will show you. Where the flatts now are was a 
point of upland from ]\Ir. Elvins' land^ down so near to 
Long Point as to leave a very narrow passage for the 
river ; the channell entered between the two points and 
turned into Palfrey Cove.^"* I asked him why that was 

7 This M'as at the foot of Daniels street. 

* The Palfray estate was east of the Custom-house, now Palfraj' Court. 



55 

called Palfmy Cove, he said one Palfray made fish there 
which he supposed gave it the name. Where the Channell 
came out of the Co^e to Stage Point (where those rocks 
are was then uplands), it passed Giggles Island straight 
over to the North Channell, — near the turn of the channel 
was a brake to the Easterd that went into Palfrays Cove, 
where Mr. Daniels built vessels and launched them into 
the Cove, that there was a low swampy piece of land to 
the Westward of Mr. Palfray's, and a brook run into the 
Cove the wet part of the season. The North Channell 
went near strait to the Westward till it came to the bur}'- 
ing point when it turned a little Southerly and then turned 
Northerly round l)y the piece of marsh, and so up the 
Millpond. The Channell between Stage Point and Gig- 
gles Island run by the now graving place into the cove, 
and then turned out by a long point opposite Joshua's 
"vvharf, and there come into the North Channell. The 
whole river above the point of land Avhere the flats now 
are was salt marsh except the Cliannells. A brake went 
from the Channell into Elder Browne's Cove, another into 
the Cove at Ingalls' Lane, and another into the Cove at 
Town House Lane up to Hue Peters' Cottage, another up 
Ruck Creek. I then observed to him that the Point of 
land of ]Mr. Elvins' and the Marshes which had stood 
undoubtedly for ages should so soon disappear was to me 
Strange. He said it would not be so strange if you knew 
the then situation. The Neck and Winter Island was then 
a Timber forrest to the edge of the water. The first thing 
the white people did after they were landed was to cut the 
Trees oft' the Neck and AYinter Island to dry fish on, and 
to fortify the Neck with two blockhouses, — that when the 
Neck was clear of trees, the North East wind (which 
before went up to Pickering Point), had a fair sweep 
through Cat Cove and over the low part of the Neck by 



56 

the blockhouse, up hy Beckett's and Hardjs, and in a 
few years made a breach through the Point of land below 
Elvins' Point : the cross channel soon filled up so as to 
make a fiir beach from Elvins land to Giggles' Island.' 

I then asked which was the principal channel ; he said 
he believed there was no difference in the depth of water, 
but at Spring tides the water runs by the South Channel 
to the Northward, and went up the North Channel which 
made that the best, but at niptides the water did not flow 
so fast and run up both channclls ; both Channells were 
equal except that the South was very crooked, and the 
North was straight, After the breach through the point 
of land by Elvins', Foot's house which Avas on the point 
of land with some other houses that were there, were 
washed down by the storms, and in a few years became 
flatts, when the cross channell was filled up. 

The ISIerchants had some difficulty in getting to the 
wharf at Elder Brown's Cove, and they then contemplated 
building a wharfe on Giggles' Island ; the channel arch in 
the strino; of Union Wharfe was made where the North 
Channell run ; the wharves above were built out to crowd 
the channell to the southward. Major Price built his 
wharf across the channell." 

Here ends the quaint account of this " interview " of 
1760 — would that there were many such ! — saved from 
destruction by the omnivorous hand of Dr. Bentley, and 
giving interesting information I am sure, to the many of 
your Association, interested in Salem's early histor}^ 

Had such a Society existed in his day no more enthusi- 
astic nor industrious member would have been found than 
he, and could he have foreseen its meetino- on this favorite 
spot of his, — a part of that farm which he was so fond of 

' Giggles Island became a part of Union Wharf. 



57 

visiting, and which had belonged to successive families of 
his parish, Abbot, Ives, Derby, Brown and Allen, — he 
would have asked no pleasanter remembrance of his l)iii;h- 
day than this connection with it. Could he have foreseen 
the modern facilities of travel and improvement which have 
made this beautiful headland such a general and favorite 
resort, whose beauties had before been so little known 
and so sparingly enjoyed, no one would have rejoiced 
more than that lover of nature and of men, William 
Bentley. 

Very truly yours, 

St^vnley Waters. 

Salem, June 22, 1880. 



NOTES 



A few clays more of researcli into Dr. Bcntlcy's "Day Book," at 
Worcester, have enabled me to add some extracts bearing upou the 
localities mentioned in the AVard "Interview," which are instructive 
and interesting. 

In regard to " Virgin Point," and " Shallop Cove," he writes : — 

"July 19, 1790. Mr. Browne delivered to me two coins, one of 
Lewis XIII & the other of Charles I of Great Britain. They were 
found upon a spot which the first settlers occupied. I intend to 
survey the ground, inquire the history, & search the records & then 
more particularly describe the coins. 

21. Took a walk this morning to the spot at which the coins were 

found The point after our crossing the run of water which 

flows from the Common to Neck Gate was called Virgin Point, said 
from three old maidens who lived near it the place being now to be 
seen. After we pass this point now in possession of Capt. Boardman 
& Gamaliel Ilodges we come to the land upon which Vincent's Rope 
walk was built. There was a road into this land to Shallop Cove on 
the east of which was a four acre lot disposed of by the heirs of 
Hodges & Vincent. It now does not contain one-third of that quantity. 
Mr. V. & B. are now building a seawall to this lot to secure the remain- 



58 

dor to be filled up level with the top of this wall. The lengtii is 

Beyond is Shallop Cove. It entered thirt}' rods beyond the pi'esent 
fence and is partly filled, by earth carted into it, & by means of a dyke 
which formerly till within a few years rau across the entrance. The 
sides have been plowed down, & this year for the first time the adja- 
cent land has been plowed up by which plowing the coins were found. 
There was a point running out on the South side, — it had trees with- 
out the fence as it now runs in a line with the seawall in the memory 
of the present generation, but has entii'cly disappeared. Bej'ond is 
Planter's Marsh extending a considerable distance from the upland. 

The first Settlers chose the North Shore by Skerry's & soon improved 
Shallop Cove for their fishing barks ; they afterward settled Point of 
Hocks and made use of Cat Cove between Point of Rocks & Winter 
Island. 

179G, Je. 29. Made an experiment at fishing from the end of Vin- 
cent's walk in Shallop Cove. It was too windy for great success. 

June 1, 1803. Several buildings going on in "Pleasant Street." 
Old Shallop Cove is now formed into a cross street going from 
pleasant street to the water. 

Jan. 31, 1817. Mr. Parker, son-in-law of Master Watson, has laid 
this week the keel of a Vessel in the old Shallop Cove below Pick- 
man's St. This was the place of business in Salem at the first landing 
on this side, but the water is so shallow as to forbid much hopes of 
its being useful again for purposes of navigation. I suppose the 
whole Cove from Iloache's Point to Planters' Marsh is not half the 
depth as when I first knew it. The conduits at the bottom of the 
common and along the new settlements empty into it & carry much 
earth." 

As to the Neck and its belongings, he writes : 

" Mcli. 24, 1791. In conversation with Madam llenew whose family 
name was Abbot, I found the following facts respecting Abbot's Cove. 

The inlet formed between the Island & the mainland towards the 
sea closed by the marsh & causeway. Her grandfather bought the 
house, whose cellar is now beneath the Headland of Juniper Point 
towards the Cove, of a Mr. Tapley. It had only a small spot of land 
adjoining. He afterwards bought a small house near the Causeway 
and owned them both. He died sixty years ago in his ninety-third 
year. He must have been born about 1640. 

The house first purchased he kept as a public house. There is no 
evidence in what year the first purchase was made or that Tapley was 
the original owner. Abbot was, she says, of Conn., & in man's estate 
when he purchased. He has hovvever given names to the Rocks, 
Cove, & Farm probably from the Public House he kept. 

The only recollection she has of the original or former state of the 



59 

farm is, that when she was born her parents lived in the old house & 
had certain privileges for taking care of the pasture as the land adjoin- 
ing was then called, & that it was owned by old Col. Iligginson, & by 
him disposed of to Capt. Ives, & by his heirs to Capt. Richard Derby 
with whose heirs it now remains. It would be a proper inquiry 
■whether the land came to the Col. Iligginson by his father & grand- 
father tlic ministers, as that might probably ascertain the original 
English Proprietors. 

The informant M. Renew ^^ the granddaughter is now eighty-five 
years old. 

Oct. 10. Colloquium habui cum Vidua Renew fllia Abbot qui vixit 
super the Neck terram jacentem infra Oppidum. Ipsa nieminit Domum 
super lusulam AVintcr, sic nominatam, in qua habitavitVir nomime 
Crow. 

Dixit mihi de "Watertowu seu de aideficiis super The point of 
Rocks. Quinque donius illic fuerunt attinentia ad Waters, Harbord, 
Striker, Punchard; Unius nomen non in memoriam suam venit. 

Super Watch House point jfidificium in quo posita est una cannon. 
Duo Blockhouses prope oppidum ad iutroitum of tlie Neck. Insula 
habuit pUirima Fishflakcs. 

Abbot sold tq Ives, & the whole property afterwards passed into the 
same hands. 

Sept. 24. . . . In the inclosure belonging to the Farm & laying 
on Abbot's Cove but l)ounding on Winter Island near the causeway is 
a mound of earth round which I traced stones set in the earth & on 
each side hollows— that to the Eastward being evidently a cellar & the 
other artificial, tliougli it is smaller, & both joining in a line the mound 
which is now nearly two feet above the stones. From the best con- 
jectures I can at present form it was a blockhouse as I have seen the 
foundations raised in this manner. 

That at Fort Dummer is not unlike in a line of it though the whole 
fort was an enclosed oblong without a lookout in the centre & a Block- 
house at each corner. As there was a storm of rain coming up, I 
deferred digging till another opportunity. There must have been 
four houses on the farm as there are the remains of the cellar & inclos- 
ure on the opposite side of the Cove. 

2G. This day I pursued my inquiries respecting the house of last 
Saturday, and instead of a blockhouse I find by digging that this was 
a very large house, & that the heap which lay so high above the 
ancient method of putting foundations, is a heap of earth & stones 
with old bricks & rubbish of which a large stack of chimneys was 



i" .Mattlicw Renough of Marblelicad was nid. to Mary Abbott by Rev. Mr. Jcnnison, 
N0V.2G, 1728. 



60 

made. Upou inquiry I find this is the old House of Abbot & not the 
one ou tlie other side of tlie Cove, aud that it was a tavern. I traced 
the well about forty feet north of the house, the inclosure back aud 
the barn to the eastward of the house standing back from the I'oad. 

For my amusement I intend to pursue my inquiries & find if possible 
the time when last inhabited. 

Ap. 11, 1795. Making inquiry into the history of the Farm upon 
the neck. M. Renew insists upou her particular knowledge of Tapley 
from whom her G. father bought the Tavern House & that one Crow 
lived upon the island while it was the property of Col. Iligginson & 
that the house was deserted some time before it was taken awa}'. 

June IS, 1803. Capt. Allen building the wall towards the Cove in 
front of his piazza on Neck. 

1807, Apr. 29. Capt. Allen has just planked his new piers on the 

North side of Abbot's Cove 

The waste of soil ou the north side of the Neck between the bar & 
Hospital Point is very great annually. Acres have gone since my 
acquaintance with it. 

Mch. 30, 1790. Found Bartlett at the new fort removing loads of 
wood of the old wharf upon Winter Island about a hundred yards 
round the point & within the wharf built by Derby. This old wharf 
was approached on the land over a ledge of rocks which reached to 
the flats & gave a security to the upper part. The old shipyard was 
within this wharf. Hereafter traces of this string of wharf may not 
be found. 

June 15, 1793. Fish Street Wharf was upon the Winter Island just 
within the Cat Cove. The remains have been removed since my day. 

May 23, 1801. Blowing of rocks upon Winter Island at the bottom 
of Fish Street, so that posterity will have no judgment of the form 
of the Shore upon which the first business was done by the primitive 
settlers. These rocks arc for the new road which is to pass over the 
inlet between Fiske & Woodbridge's from Neptune St. to Water St. 
They have blowed also those rocks lying below the New Fort on the 
opposite side of Cat Cove, or Winter Island harbour. 

May 16, 1790. Great preparations for launching (the Grand Turk). lu 
digging the ship's dock four feet below the surface was found the body 
of a tree of red oak & sound excepting the sap. It was cut off & 
drawn out above twelve feet long with a crotch in the middle & two 
limbs. 

Mar. 9, 1798. Find that there were 7 Indians found buried at the 
Point of Rocks at the S. W. end with those stone balls with heads 
supposed to be used in fishing. This laml is now entirely gone. 

Mr. Becket at Point of Rocks found irons & bolts which discovered 
a building yard on the low part towards Cat Cove. 



61 

Sawdust & chips arc yet found under the mud from the Point off 
Daniels' Lane, Foot's former!}' & afterwards Elvins' Point. 

Nov. 24, 1818. Capt. Waters informs of a large branch of a tree 
found at the point of flats off Foot's point which proved to be walnut. 
This point lias disappeared since the settlement of Salem. 

Jan. 21, 1819. The Oiik drawn from Foot's point, see "Essex Register' 
Dec. 30, 1818, — first appeared in the salt storm 23 Sept. 1815, & was 
thirty-five feet long & eleven inches over the butt with a crotch at the 
upper end. It was in the highest possible preservation &, must have 
been there much over a century. 

I have elsewhere particularly noticed this fact. The Clay under our 
land has much alum as may be seen from the efflorescence when the 
clay is turned out. Allum concurs with the other salts in the preser- 
vation while buried." 

"Foot's Point" lay at the bottom of Daniels' St. extending south- 
easterly into the Soutli Piiver or Harbor, and when it was washed away, 
the estate next north of it, owned by Richard Elvins, became the Point 
& gave its name to it. Richard Elvins is called 'balier' in the 
deeds of his property and appears to have been a prominent man in 
the East Parish in his time, and to have bought real estate in other 
parts of it as well as this homestead. I find no record of him after 
about 1744, nor of any settlement of his estate." 



"Two most interesting entries in Dr. Centley's journal, wliicli I liave since been fortu- 
nate enough to liappen upon, explain the disappearance of the name of Deacon Elvins 
from our records, and tlirow clear light also upon a hitherto dark subject in the history 
of tlje East Society, the character of Mr. Jennison, and the reason of his dismission. 

All knowledge upon these points had been lost as long ago as 1845, when Dr. Flint in 
his Farewell Discourse spoke of the entire ignorance upon the subject which exislea, 
though it seems hardly possible that none of the elder people of llie society then living 
were able to give some information on the matter, or tliat no general tradition had survived. 

Dr. Flint wonders if it were some "bodily infirmity" that prevented the continuance 
of Jennison's labors, and Dr. Bentley more than once speaks of his predecessor's "eccen- 
tricities,"' but in the following explicit statement he clears away all doubt, and lifts after 
all these years, to our great satisfaction, that veil which Dr. Flint regretted as dropped 
forever. 

" Mch. 22, ISOl. Last Sunday for the first time since I have been lu Salem, we had lay 
"exhortations," for the edification of the Flock. I have not heard that this ever took 
place before except in a more qualified sense in our own I'arish. In 1735 during Mr. Jenni- 
son's time, who was at last dismissed by consent from his known Intemperance, when he 
was not able to attend public service, he advised Deacon Elvins to pray & read & exhort 
& then dismiss the assembly. 

A wag once wrote on tlie Church door 

"Our Preacher Silly Billy's sick 

And We've our preaching from our Baker Dick." 

Mr. Elvins was flattered by his success & instituted praying meetings at his house & 
finally mounted the I'ulpit, * afterwards left his occupation & went & settled at Black point, 
now Scarborough, Maine, & married the 'Widow of his predecessour, Mr. Willard, & the 
mother of the present President of Harvard College. My Predecessour, Mr. Dinutfi, 



62 

He md. Jul}' 14, 1715, Sarah Beadle, and in Dec, 1723, they were 
dismissed from the First Church to the East. At the former his cliil- 
dren were baptized. 

Samuel, Feb. 10, 1716-7. 
Eichard, Nov. 2, 1718. 
Sarah, Oct. 14, 1722. 
Mary, July 16, 1727. 

Samuel died May 5, 1723, and the mother July 9, 1743, aged 55. I 
think Richard and Mary died unmarried, and that tlie only survivor of 
the family was Sarah, wlio md. July 18, 1744, Josiali Orne, and a 
Josiah Orne, jr., md. June 18, 17SG, Alice, dau. of Capt. Edw. Allen, 
and in the person of their son — the family friend of the generation 
before us, — who md. his cousin Anne Allen, and removed to Pontotoc, 
Miss., years ago the name was revived in the familiar " liilvin Orne." 

Deacon Elvins apparently lived once in St. Peters' St., as in 1743 
he sold to Jos. Symonds, jr. and Jona. Verry, jr., a dwelling house 
and a quarter of an acre of land, bounded E. on Prison Lane, S. by 
the house and land of Eliz'h Gray, W. by land that belonged to 
Habakuk Gardner, and N. by premises of said Eliz'h Gray. 

In 1728-9 he bought of Benj. Woodberry of Beverly and wife 
Eliz'h, and of Josiah Lee of Manchester, and Avife Marj', the wives 
being daughters of Obed Carter, dec'd, his late dwelling house bounded 



thought hull an artful man & that he took advantage of Mr. Jennison, But In his society 
he was much respected till death, & his plaintive strains vouched for great sincerity in liis 
ministry. 

Sept. 4, 1739. This afternoon was buried Madam S. Orne a3t. 77. She was a dau. of 
Kicliard Elvins. This Richard was a Baker In tlie eastern part of Salem, & Deacon in the 
East Meeting House. During the life of W. Jennison, tlie minister, he was often called to 
officiate as Jennison was very excentric. Wlien he had hegun he was unwilling to quit, & 
tlierefore went eastward to preach, & was ordained at Blackpoint, & married tlie widow 
of the Minister deceased, who was the mother of the present President Willard of Cam- 
bridge." 

It will be seen by the following extract from a letter to the venerable society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, from Rev. Mr. Brockwell, their agent then in 
Salem, tliat he characterizes Mr. Elvins a little more harshly. He is writing to the secre- 
tary at Fulliam, near London, of the "New Light" doctrines tlien industriously propagated 
through this country by Mr. Whitfield and others. 

Salem, Feb. IS, 1741-2. 

" Rogers of Ipswich one of this Pseudo Apostles displayed his talent in ye Town on Sun- 
day ye 24th January & continued here so doing until ye Thursdav following, when he left 
his auditory in charge to one Elvins a Baker who holds forth every Thursday, and the a 
fellow of consummate ignorance is nevertheless followed by great multitudes & much 
cried up. But I thank (Joil, that few of my churcli went to hear either of them, and those 
yt did wholly disliked them. 

'■ P. S. A noted teacher in this Town is suspected of Forgery, of which if he next July 
Court sliould be found guilty,. 1 am pretty conlidont many of his congregation will draw off 
to the Church of England & more of the better sort." 



63 

N. "by the liighway Jjoing down to yc Blockhouse and Neck, South 
by Salem Harbor, W. by land of Joseph Ilillard, and E. by that of 
Capt. Wm. Pickering and tlie Collinses;" tliese premises — two acres 
in extent — "with t!ie fniit trees, &c.," he sold to Capt. Benj. Ives 
Jan. 14, 1733. 

This property at the head of the Xeck was known as " 'J'he Block 
Ilonse Field." 

He Avas one of the co-owners with Benjamin Ives and Pliilip Sann- 
ders in the land, dwelliny-house and Windmill which were wlicre 
Northey St. now runs, and in 1742 sold his quarter to llev. James 
Diman. 

April 10, 1721, he bought of the Rev. Benjamin Prescott and wife 
Elizabeth for £1!)0, three quarters of an acre, bounded N. AV. by ye 
premises of ye Widow Dourie, N. E. by those of Widow Sarah 
Williams, S. E. bj^ the house and land of Samuel Foot, and S. W. by 
the land of the Iligginsons, with the dwelling-house, bakehouse 
warehouse, fruit trees, &c., excepting its common right. 

These premises were those from which the name was given of 
"Elvins" Point." 

They had been occupied l)y John Stratton at a very early period, 
and afterwards belonged to Henry True, whose widow Israel (sic) 
then of Salisbury, conveyed them, — a dwelling house, quarter of an 
acre of land adjoining, &c., — to George Gardner, merchant in ICu!). 
Mr. Fitz. Waters obliges me with the conveyances from these early 
owners to their later successors. George Gardner died in 1()7'J, 
leaving by his will the estate in two parts, — one, the southern or 
water end, to his dau. the wife of Ilabakkuk Turner; the other or 
northern end to his son Samuel. 

The former was sold by Robert Turner of Weathersfield, Conn., 
joined by his sister JIary and their mother Mary Marstoii, in IGDS, to 
Samuel P'oot, and wliile in the holding of the latter was so largely 
washed awa}"^ by the wind-driven waters, as stated by the elder Ward. 

In 1702 Capt. Samuel Gardner conveys to his son and dan., John and 
Hannah Higgiuson, the liouse " Cozen Jolin Buttoiph lives in," witii 
the Bakehouse, &c., &c. 

Elizabeth Iligginson a dau. md. Rev. Benj. Prescott, and from them, 
as we have seen, the estate came to Richard Elvins. In 1744 Elvins 
conveyed it to his son-in-law Josiah Orne. Witnesses, Walter Palfray. 

Francis Cabot. 

In 174S Orne sells to John Carrell. Witnesses, Thos. Lechmere. 

James Perrolt. 

In 17oG he recovers the same from Carrell by execution. 



64 

In 1757 he sold it to Capt. John Webb (who md. Judith Phelps, 
whose sister Rachel md. Daniel Ilathorne), and Webb sold in 1798 to 
his son-in-law James Carroll the northerly portion, having earlier in 
that year sold the southerly part to Joseph Fogg, who I think bought 
afterwards the other part also and from whom the flats at the bottom 
of Daniels' St. took the name which they have borne in our own time, 
of "Fogg's Beach." 

In regard to the changes of our sliore, Dr. Bentley remarks about 
1818, that Collins Cove was then only half as deep as when he came 
to Salem (1783) so much deposit having been carried into it, especially 
by the little creek flowing down what was afterwards East Street. 

Might not Virgin Point have taken its name from John Virgin, an 
early merchant of Salem? 

St.vnlky Watkrs. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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